Damian Sendler For decades, social and developmental psychologists have been studying racial issues (e.g., Aboud, 1988). There have been and continue to be racial issues in public debates and conflicts in modern societies, despite the fact that cultural diversity has existed for a long time. To illustrate how racial issues continue to be at the core of important social and political conflicts today, despite all attempts at integration policies, the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States (Atkins, 2019).
Damian Jacob Sendler Intergroup processes that precede prejudice and discrimination are rooted in social categorization (Bigler and Liben, 2006). Among children, the development of racial categorization is influenced by factors such as ingroup size and social status (Verkuyten and Thijs, 2001; Gedeon et al., 2021). These variables affect how children perceive themselves in a given environment, such as how important their group membership is and how much their social identity is valued, and how this influences the formation of racial stereotypes.
Dr. Sendler Intergroup relations studies often fail to distinguish between the effects of group size and social status on intergroup relations. Indeed, it is not uncommon for members of minorities to have a low social standing (economically and in terms of prestige). In some instances, these two variables are not linked, however (e.g., White people in South Africa). Do all of these things have a negative impact on children’s relationships within their own peer groups? When it comes to prejudice and discrimination, does one’s social status have a greater impact than one’s ingroup’s size?
The purpose of this review is to look at how children’s social categorization and intergroup relations are affected by their environment’s characteristics (such as the size of their ingroup and their social status). To begin, we’ll talk about how racial categorization has evolved, how prevalent it is in certain social settings, and how it influences interpersonal interactions. Then, we’ll try to identify the specific effects of group size and social status that have been found in the research literature. We used the academic search engine Psychinfo to find relevant studies published between the year 2000 and the middle of August 2020. Only peer-reviewed studies that include a dependent measure of intergroup bias and use a child sample (mostly preschoolers but all under the age of 13 – preteens) are eligible for consideration. These were the key terms: “racial categorization,” and the study focused on “intergroup relations,” “social status,” and “numerical group size.” According to our criteria, we identified 73 papers and checked their titles and abstracts.
Being able to discern one’s race from others based on physical characteristics is referred to as “race awareness” (Aboud, 1988). When it comes to children’s development, this can be considered a foundation for the racial categorization process (Kelly, 2005; Hirschfeld, 2008; Hailey, 2013). Skin tone, hair type, and facial features all play a role in how people define their race. The tendency for race to be perceived as a psychologically salient and meaningful basis for grouping others can be defined as “racial categorization” (Pauker et al., 2016, p. 33).
The saliency of the criterion used in the categorization process is one of the factors influencing social categorization. The self-categorization theory says that the saliency of a criterion is determined by the proportion of perceived intergroup differences to ingroup similarities (Turner and Reynolds, 2011). As a result, children must be able to compare these perceptual differences in order to use any criteria for grouping individuals.
Children’s ability to form social categories is influenced by both their cognitive development and their experiences in the social world (Gedeon et al., 2021). It is true that social categories do not develop at the same time, and their emergence depends on the age of the child and his or her social environment. Under three-year-old children lack an understanding of race as a meaningful social category, according to developmental studies. In their attitudes and behaviors, children seem to be better guided by factors like gender, age, and language (for a review, see Esseily et al., 2016).
On the ontogenetic and phylogenetic levels, this late racial categorization development can be explained. When long-distance migrations began, humans’ tendency to encode coalitional alliances was based on gender and age, and those based on race only appeared later (Cosmides et al., 2003). Children’s later use of racial criteria may be explained by the fact that social categorization is heavily influenced by familiarity, making it extremely vulnerable to the children’s surroundings (Pauker et al., 2017). Children, on the other hand, are more likely than adults to be exposed to the differences between races and genders because they have been around people of both genders since birth (Quintana, 2012). In contrast, their interactions with people of other races are highly dependent on the surrounding circumstances (Kurtz-Costes et al., 2011). If a child grows up in a highly diverse environment, he or she is more likely to interact with people from different ethnic backgrounds.
Research conducted by Bigler and Liben (2006) and others suggests that in order to better understand how children develop stereotyping and prejudice, it is necessary to look at the context in which they grow up. DIT’s psychological salience depends on the group’s proportional size, which is one of the DIT’s components (Bigler and Liben, 2006, 2007). According to social norms, belonging to an underrepresented minority group is more important than being a member of the majority (Badea and Askevis-Leherpeux, 2005). Assume a woman finds herself in an elevator with only men. If there are equal numbers of men and women in the membership category, she is more likely to think of this category (i.e., woman). Those who belong to an ingroup that is numerically smaller than the majority are more likely to be aware of their group membership.
The ingroup characteristics of group size are not taken into account in most studies on social categorization with children, but rather, social status is the primary focus. Next, we’ll discuss these studies, and then we’ll show a handful of studies that took group size into account. According to the literature, the impact of group size has not been studied in detail. As a result, we’ll include research on the influence of student diversity, measured in terms of class size, on interpersonal relationships. The term “minority” refers only to numerical group size in our proposal, and we will try to separate the social and numerical effects of the term.
Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler Children from lower socioeconomic status groups are more likely to be aware of race than children from higher socioeconomic status groups (Akiba et al., 2004). Compared to high social status children, low status children are more likely to categorize others by race and integrate race concepts earlier (Ho et al., 2015). Kinzler and Dautel (2012), for example, compared the reasoning of 5- and 6-year-olds about the stability of race and language throughout an individual’s life. It was decided to randomly pair images of children from both races with audio clips in either English or French for the benefit of English-speaking children (both White and Black). Images of adults of varying ethnicity and language were then shown to participants, who were asked to match each child photograph with an adult photograph based on how they envisioned the child growing up. While white children matched the images based on language criteria, Black children matched the images based on race, suggesting that children from low-status environments have a more stable race-based categorization.
In low-status children, the ability to classify others based on race grows with time (for a review, see Bonvillain and Huston, 2000; Hailey and Olson, 2013). Children from low-status racial groups are more aware of racial stereotypes and discrimination than children from high-status racial groups, according to research on middle-school-aged children (Dulin-Keita et al., 2011). The authors investigate whether or not children from lower-status racial groups are more likely than those from higher-status racial groups to be aware of their race and whether or not they have been subjected to racial discrimination. Race discrimination was more prevalent among children of lower socioeconomic status than among children of higher socioeconomic status, according to the results of the study (i.e., White children). For example, children from high- and low-status racial groups may have different socialization experiences. Parents of low-status children are more likely than parents of high-status children to explain to their children the differences they may notice based on race at an earlier age (for a review, see Priest et al., 2014).
Damian Sendler
The use of social categories and stereotypes by children from high status groups is also influenced by their socialization. Based on children’s actual observations of differences between groups, the social learning approach proposes that stereotypes are learned from the social environment in which children live (e.g., Eagly et al., 2000). As an example, Bar-Tal (1996) examines social categorization in 2.5–6.5 year old Israeli children in a conflict-ridden environment. Research shows that children’s daily surroundings have a significant impact on their conceptions of social groups. Using stereotypes that they hear or see on a regular basis, children as young as 2.5 years old are able to categorize the “Arabs” negatively.
Social categorization has ramifications for intergroup relations once it is internalized through socialization. To maintain a positive view of one’s group and a fulfilling social identity, racial categorization allows children and adults to identify as members of a particular group (Tajfel and Turner, 1986). Those who belong to lower social strata, on the other hand, may favor the outgroup (Jost and Burgess, 2000). Adults show a similar pattern when it comes to intergroup attitudes, with children from high-status racial groups showing strong ingroup favoritism while children from low-status groups show a more mixed outcome (e.g., out-group favoritism, pro-White bias, or neither in-group or out-group favoritism; Corenblum and Annis, 1993; Griffiths and Nesdale, 2006; Gedeon et al., 2021). Low-status children’s out-of-group bias may be a reflection of societal prejudices and intergroup discrimination (Bonvillain and Huston, 2000; Masse et al., 2009). One study found that Native Indian children, ages 5 to 8, had more positive attitudes toward the White group than their own-group, indicating a preference for the outsiders (Corenblum and Annis, 1993).
Study after study demonstrates how groups’ social standing can affect the development of racially-based social categorization and the intergroup relationships of children. It is possible that the school environment, where children are exposed to different racial groups in different proportions, may play a role in racial categorization (i.e., ingroup size).
Diversity in an environment affects intergroup processes like categorization and in-group favoritism, as well as the perception of cultural distance between groups (Pauker et al., 2017). Research suggests that children who grow up in multiracial households are more likely than those who do not to learn about the differences between races sooner than those who grow up in monoracial households (Ramsey, 2008). When children attend a racially homogeneous or racially diverse school, the results are very different. Three- to five-year-olds in racially mixed preschool classrooms showed no evidence of bias in favor of their White in-group, while those in homogeneous classrooms did show evidence of bias. These findings were also confirmed in studies involving older kids: A study by McGlothlin and Killen (2010) found that White American children aged 7 to 10 who attended homogeneous schools were less likely than their counterparts in racially diverse schools to view cross-race dyads (Black and White children) as friends.
Damien Sendler School environments that are homogeneous or heterogeneous refer to the percentage of minority students in a school. Even though the high-status racial group typically makes up the majority of studies, the numbers can be flipped in low-income areas. To put it another way, in a predominantly high-status racial environment, there aren’t many kids from lower-status backgrounds. Children from different racial groups are equally represented in a diverse school community. School diversity allows us to examine the influence of group size on intergroup relations, in addition to the familiarity children have with other racial groups.
Damian Jacob Sendler
Gedeon et al. (2021) investigated the effect of ingroup size in a low-diversity school environment on racial categorization and perceived cultural distance in a French study with preschool children (4–6 years old). Images of children from various racial groups (Europeans, Black-, and North-Africans) were used for a spontaneous social categorization task and an evaluation of the perceived cultural distance between participants’ in-group and the racial group represented in the picture (language, eating habits, and music). The older the children were, the better they did at correctly classifying them as one of several races. According to their findings, people in the majority group saw minority peers as more distinct than their peers in the minority group. Participants from minority groups, on the other hand, saw no differences in the photographs when they were grouped together based on race.
For children from a minority group, the distinction between “ingroup” and “outgroup” becomes more pronounced because of their numerical disadvantage (Brewer et al., 1993; Fishbein, 1996; Brewer and Brown, 1998). Minority children tend to show less ingroup bias than majority children, just like the impact of social status (Aboud, 1988). This proclivity appears to manifest itself early on in life. Pun et al. (2016) found that infants can infer social dominance between two groups using numerical group size cues as early as 6 months of age, suggesting that intergroup relationships and social dominance have evolved over time in this way. Children aged 6 to 9 months were shown short animations depicting the actions of two individuals (cartoons) from two groups that differed in numerical size, as part of a study by the University of British Columbia. First, the cartoons were shown to the babies, and then they saw the characters accidentally bumping into each other. Each trial’s looking time was recorded by the infants. To understand why infants are more surprised and look longer at the individual from the numerically smaller group than the numerically larger group, researchers looked at the number of people in each group. There were no surprises in the findings, and this was the only study to examine group size as a whole.
Separate studies have examined the impact of ingroup social status and ingroup size on racial social categorization and intergroup relations, and these studies have been presented in this paper. When it comes to social status in Western societies, the size of the group and the social status of the group are often conjoined. Studies have shown that children use race and the size of their group to determine their social status. Racism has been shown to be an important factor in predicting wealth (i.e., who lives in a nicer house, which is linked to social status) as early as the age of 3. The results also showed that this prediction remained stable with respect to the passage of time (Mandalaywala et al., 2020). Theoretically, it is important to understand whether these factors have cumulative effects or interact in a different manner, especially in the early stages of children’s interactions, in order to design specific and efficient educational and preventive interventions.
According to Brown and Bigler (2002), children’s intergroup attitudes are influenced by their relative group size and social status. There were two types of novel groups in the classrooms for elementary school students attending a summer school program: large (majority) and small (minority) (denoted by colored tee-shirts). In addition, there were subliminal messages about social standing in the classroom. The traits associated with belonging to a group were displayed in large posters (spelling ability, leadership ability, athletic prowess, classroom behavior, or occupational prestige). The two variables (size and status) were not combined in this study, however. There was a clear divide between the majority group and the minority group in terms of social status. After a few weeks in the classroom, children’s intergroup attitudes (e.g., trait ratings, group evaluations) were assessed. If a child is part of a minority group, they show more biased trait ratings (ie, they characterize the outgroup with more negative traits) than majority children regardless of their age. Children with lower social status exhibited greater ingroup favoritism than their high-status majority peers, even after controlling for age. Lower status minority groups expressed lower ingroup favoritism than higher status majority children, but this result was not found with older children. One possible explanation for ingroup favoritism persisting through the ages is that size of the group matters. It’s possible that social status can reduce or even reverse this favoritism in favor of outgroup favoritism, which helps maintain inequalities in society.
Importantly, most studies included in this theoretical note were conducted within WEIRD populations, where White people tend to be in the majority and have a high social status; this is an important point to keep in mind (see Supplementary Table 1). To better understand the relationship between group size and social status in non-WEIRD populations, it may be worthwhile to look at the overlap between the two factors.
When examining children’s intergroup processes, this review focused on the interplay between group size and social status. Low-income and minority children appear to develop racial categorization earlier than children from wealthier families. These findings could be explained by the fact that children are socially taught prejudices and discrimination against their own group (Priest et al., 2014). For low-status children, there is a disconnect between the positive attitudes that go hand in hand with the development of their own group identity and the awareness of the perceived negative value that goes hand in hand with this identity in society (Corenblum and Annis, 1993). Prejudice and discrimination as well as a general social hierarchy are maintained by this lack of ingroup favoritism or even an outgroup positive bias.
That review also found that social and numerical group size are frequently combined in the literature. Low-status students are, in fact, a numerical minority in their educational setting in the majority of these studies. It is important to keep in mind that even though we attempted to separate them here in order to examine their specific effects, this distinction remains hypothetical because in real life they tend to merge. Even so, future research should focus on determining the specific effects of social status and ingroup size and their interaction. It would be possible to implement early and efficient intervention programs that target the social status of the general population or the proportion of racial groups in the school environment (e.g., Nasie et al., 2021). (e.g., Verkuyten and Kinket, 2000; Gaias et al., 2018).